From NEHJ: Hockey path worked well for Harvard's Stone

Still only in her 40s, Harvard University’s Katey Stone
already is the winningest women’s hockey coach in Division 1
history with more than 350 career victories.

She’s earned numerous Coach of the Year awards from a
variety of outlets and organizations, guided her squad to the 1999
AWCHA national championship and three NCAA finals appearances, and
won 10 Beanpot titles, five ECAC tournament championships, six ECAC
regular-season titles and five Ivy League crowns. This magazine
even rated her No. 33 on our list of the “Top 50 Most
Influential People in New England Hockey” three years
ago.

Equally, if not more impressive, than all of those accolades,
she also has presided over the U.S. Women’s National Team
since 2010 and has a drawer full of medals, most recently leading
her team to the gold medal last month at the 2011 Four Nations Cup
in Sweden, culminated by a shootout victory over rival Canada.

And yet …

“I always thought I’d be a college lacrosse coach,
honestly,” Stone said with a laugh. “I loved playing,
and I think it’s an unbelievable game.”

Stone (Watertown, Conn.) did more than play lacrosse. She
starred at it. During her four collegiate seasons at the University
of New Hampshire, Stone captained the hockey and lacrosse teams,
twice being named a lacrosse All-American selection on the way to
an NCAA title in 1985, and she also was All-ECAC on the ice,
winning a pair of ECAC championships in 1986 and 1987.

Chance, at least in a matter of speaking, is what brought Stone
to hockey, however. She’s now in her 18th season watching
over the Crimson, getting the job at just 28 years of age after
short stints as a coach and assistant athletic director at Tabor
Academy, as well as coaching positions with Northfield Mount Hermon
and Phillips Exeter Academy.

“Things happen for a reason,” Stone said.
“This job (at Harvard) came open, and I was very fortunate to
get it.”

But, whether it was lacrosse or hockey, there was no question as
to whether she’d find her way into the coaching ranks.

“It’s our family business,” she said, first
developing aspirations to coach in college.

Her father, Larry, coached and was the director of athletics at
the Taft School for 34 years. Her oldest brother, Mike, currently
serves as the head baseball coach at UMass-Amherst, where
he’s been for the past 24 years. Her big sister, Kelly,
coached lacrosse and was the assistant athletic director at the
Hotchkiss School before moving on to coach field hockey at Sacred
Heart, where she is today. And, her other older brother, Jim, works
as the director of athletics and coaches baseball and football at
Blair Academy in New Jersey.

When it’s in your blood, there’s no alternative
— not even a fleeting urge to be a lawyer instead — and
it easily could be argued that the baby of the family has been the
most successful of the bunch.

But the price of success also can be suffocating. Never mind all
that’s involved when you’re running the bench of a top
national program, the responsibilities at the university level are
immense. Recruiting. Fundraising. Then there’s trying to
evolve at the same rate as her ever-pestering technological
counterpart. Sure, all of these things are meaningful, substantial
and necessary. Still, they take a toll.

“The last thing you get to do is coach, really,”
Stone said. “You have to deal with all the garbage, and
it’s not quite as light-hearted in some ways. That’s
why those two hours at practice are the best time of the day for me
because no one can get a hold of you, the phone doesn’t ring,
it’s just you and your players, and that’s really the
best part.”

That said, it’s a balancing act, and she’ll be the
first to credit assistant coaches Jeff Pellegrini (Lynn, Mass.) and
Maura Crowell (Masnfield, Mass.)for the job they do to ease her
stresses and keep the ship running flawlessly when she’s
otherwise engulfed by her national responsibilities.

The solution to the balance, she says, is simply living in the
moment.

“It’s a challenge, and I’m getting better at
it. Last year (her first wearing the two hats) exhausted me a
little bit more than I imagined. The key for me is to be where I am
and to go through whatever it is, and then my mind can be clear.
When I’m with USA Hockey, I’m there, and when I’m
back at Harvard, I’m here, so it works. It’s just a
matter of grabbing some downtime whenever possible and getting
plenty of rest.”

Admittedly, that time off is hard to come by. When Stone can,
she’ll hang out with friends and family, vacation and play
golf, get some sleep and, ideally, relax in front of a Patriots
game on a Sunday afternoon.

When she closes her eyes, though, she’s on the ice, not
ready to take her foot off the gas by reflecting upon her many past
successes, nor projecting what lies ahead. Simply, she’s just
“trying to be where I am.”

Where she is, is exactly where she wants to be. Stone’s
not married but jokes that she has lots of children, kids who wear
either crimson and white, or red, white and blue, and she loves
them all equally, though she calls her role in Cambridge the best
job in college hockey, and one she has no desire to leave any time
soon.

But, with all she’s accomplished, what’s left to
achieve?

“Always looking to win another national championship at
Harvard,” said Stone, whose team got off to a 5-1 start
before dropping three consecutive games in late November.
“That’s the ultimate goal, and there’s tons of
opportunity to be successful underneath that goal for whatever year
it is. And, certainly, we’re trying to win a gold medal (in
the Olympics) for the United States. That would be an unbelievable
opportunity to be involved in something like that.”

In the meantime, she’ll keep doing what she’s done
for so long already: coaching, teaching and gaining satisfaction
through the individual and collective growth of her players,
amplified by each and every big win. The credit there goes to those
who instructed her so well at UNH, Russ McCurdy in hockey and Marge
Anderson in lacrosse.

“You can learn a lot from watching and listening,”
she said. “I remember so much of what my college hockey coach
taught me and my teammates about the fundamentals of the game, and
I also remember my college lacrosse coach, who reminded me how much
fun you can have playing sports. So, the discipline in the
fundamentals and then the free-spiritedness of being really
successful with some great people — mesh those two together,
and that’s what we’re trying to do at
Harvard.”

Mesh the two together, and it’s proven to be a thriving
recipe, one that she hopes will lead to a fond remembrance after
her time in the sport is done.

“I hope that I’ve made a positive impact on the game
and fought for things that I felt were really important for
women’s hockey and the athletes,” Stone said of her
eventual legacy. “At Harvard, we’ve always tried to do
the right thing, that the program had the best reputation in
college hockey, not just for wins and losses, but for respect, the
kind of athletes, the way they behave and how they conduct
themselves. They play hard but have the ultimate sportsmanship. I
think all of those things are top-down. I think that’s the
best compliment anyone could give, that our players have always
represented Harvard and the program with tremendous
respect.”

That’s Katey Stone. She prefers not to talk about herself,
but her message is clear. A team-oriented, winning philosophy with
winning results for the woman with more wins than any other. And,
in so many ways, it feels like she’s only just getting
started.

This article originally appeared in the December 2011 issue
of New England Hockey Journal. Adam Kaufman can be reached at
feedback@hockeyjournal.com.